Salmon fishing when then are spawning

[getin]

Hey guys,
this question has been bugging me for a while! If salmons are spawning in fall, why catching them is not restricted, like other fish? MNR opens the season for most fish when thier spawning time is over. I caugth a salmon and asked someone if it was a male or female and the supposidly expert told me that it was a male! I took it home and long behold it was full of eggs, made me really feel bad. I am thinking all those fish milked out of their eggs could have produced so many salmons.

 

Hey guys,
this question has been bugging me for a while! If salmons are spawning in fall, why catching them is not restricted, like other fish? MNR opens the season for most fish when thier spawning time is over. I caugth a salmon and asked someone if it was a male or female and the supposidly expert told me that it was a male! I took it home and long behold it was full of eggs, made me really feel bad. I am thinking all those fish milked out of their eggs could have produced so many salmons.

lol because people have been doing it since the beginning of time 8) It's a big part of the fishery. Float fishing companies would go bankrupt LOL

 

tourist attraction.

 

[getin]

Does it really attract tourist? Everybody I see is local! At least they can make it illigal to kill the fish just for the eggs, or something like release female ones

 

well its illegal to

fight a snagging fish

keeping a snagging fish

keep the eggs of a snagging fish and throwing the carcass on the side or in the rivers

keeping the eggs of a legit caught salmon and throwing the carcass away

keeping more than five on a sports and more than two on a conservation

ive seen people giving carcass away and continue fishing for more eggs but i dont think its right

also these salmon are not native. so to increase the fishing industry and tourisim they release these monsters(i might be wrong but i think im in the right context)

you are probably not the first person who wondered about this but dont be such a hippie 8)

 

Does it really attract tourist? Everybody I see is local! At least they can make it illigal to kill the fish just for the eggs, or something like release female ones

nah they just stock them like crazy. I couldn't care less about chinooks. Bring on the summer atlantics!!!!

BTW don't be a hippie. be a pimp

 

Summer atlantics are still off limits.

 

[Grey Ghost]

The season doesn't close for salmon because they were considered a non-reproducing species. The fish were originally stocked to develop a 'put & take' fishery. The MNR knows the rivers can not sustain the salmon smolt.
In Huron, where they have stopped any salmon stocking program the salmon are gradually disappearing, the only salmon runs showing up on Huron tribs these days are U.S. fish that have lost their way. Lake Ontario rivers benefit from the substantial stocking on the U.S. side of the lake. The fish you get are paid for by foreign sports $.
Our MNR is focused on stocking naturally reproducing fish eg; lake trout and have no interest in supporting the species fishermen are looking for.

 

that makes more sense.

also i thought atlantic was native. and yes this year lake trout sucked arse.

 

[Mykester]

Chinnys aren't natural in Lake O. They're stocked solely for the fishing aspect.

 

you know what else needs to be slowly phased out? snaggers. especially with rainbow trout.

 

[Mykester]

?What is ringwood hatchery stocking

 

[fishinguypat]

So what if someday the Atlantic salmon fishery on lake Ontario became sustainable? would they reproduce naturally? Would the fishery no longer have to be stocked?

 

[Grey Ghost]

Atlantic salmon was able to reproduce naturally in these river before we polluted the rivers and they were overfished (probably those same snaggers). I am not so sure they have a great chance now cause certainly the streamside pollution is getting worse and the snaggers haven't disappeared.

 

[BaitCaster]

Like somebody said before, Chinooks are not natural to the great lakes. They were originally stocked to control the Alewife population, which is an invasive species. Also, the fact is that very few great lakes salmon spawn successfully, i.e., most of the Chinooks that you catch did not hatch from eggs in tributaries, they were stocked by the MNR.

 

[LICENSETOPIN]

even if the smolts could survive our little creeks and rivers they wouldnt even get there period, i see ppl lining and snagging fish right out of the redds and then right after wade right in and step on all the fertillized eggs. our fishery wont change if the ppl dont.

 

even if the smolts could survive our little creeks and rivers they wouldnt even get there period, i see ppl lining and snagging fish right out of the redds and then right after wade right in and step on all the fertillized eggs. our fishery wont change if the ppl dont.

I don't see any problem drifting over redds. Especially when you can nail a few bows at the end.

 

[Kestrel]

I don't see any problem drifting over redds. Especially when you can nail a few bows at the end.

I’m sad to read this…Simply put, Pedro/Rapala boy, you need to learn more about ethics and respect towards our fisheries – More so towards cherishing wild populations of salmon, steelhead and browns which many of our Ontario tributaries support.

Why do I think fishing redds is wrong? You decrease the chance of fish spawning successfully by disrupting them while they are in the midst of doing ‘it’. It doesn’t take a skilled angler to drift a lure or bait across a redd to elicit an aggressive/territorial response from a fish. After a fish is pulled from a redd, do you think it will just go back to the same spot and continue to provide an infinite number of eggs and milt? Similarly after all the commotion of its mate being hooked and pulled away from the redd, do you think its partner (or partners) will just stick around to see what happens and finish up the job of laying/fertilizing and covering the eggs with gravel? Probably not. You’ve just ruined a batch (as small as the outcome may be) of possible next generation salmon/steelhead.

Thank god regulations (for the most part) are in place to allow for areas that fish can remain undisturbed in from anglers while they spawn (i.e. Sanctuaries and the closures of seasons). For rivers that require steelhead to jump large dams, natural barriers or weirs, the fish are at greater risk because of the timing of trout season and the fact that they are at the mercy of seasonal temperatures (i.e. fish usually require temps to be 4-5 degrees C before they start jumping). Cold winters and cold springs can have large numbers of fish who have yet to spawn (or are in the midst of spawning) suddenly become molested by anglers fishing redds.

Personally speaking, I don’t see any difference between a poacher and an angler that drifts through and pulls fish off redds…But that’s just me.

 

[getin]

Regulations are the bare minimum, to be followed. Ethics is what we need, if we cosider the fisheries "ours" and not "theirs", that has to be harvested as much as possible.

 

Personally speaking, I don’t see any difference between a poacher and an angler that drifts through and pulls fish off redds…But that’s just me.

I've done both